on passion and buckets
by venusianeye
Summary: a question worth asking: why does it matter how passionate you are for your kismesis or matesprit? And furthermore: why are buckets so lewd? primarily sollux/eridan, but there's rose/kanaya in the background. xenobiology headcanons in fic form.


note for context: at this point in canon reveals, it is pretty clear that the condesce wants the alpha kids to play the game because the reverse alchemization process shown for an item (in one of jane's panels) will allow her to get her hands on a matriorb and, thus, rebuild her empire. i am assuming that post-victory means that Our Heroes get their hands on the matriorb instead.

the rest is all my horrible headcanons; i have taken terrible liberties. **be aware that there is_ very creepy_ and _very gross_ xenobiology happening in this story. **regular text is Kanaya POV, {{}} bracketed text is Eridan's POV. i apologize in advance if anyone throws up. :x

* * *

For yourself, the battle had not concluded with the Victory. The Victory had removed obstacles in the way of your overall quest; but even in a fresh and sparkling new universe, and although you had wept in relief, you were not done, your species was still, as Rose put it over a cup of tea, littlest finger smartly arched, _in the red._

Miss Lalonde had proved an excellent and wholly palatable companion, demure and viciously intelligent, possessing a keen eye and an iron stomach for the alien. She was fascinated by the biology of your species - which was not to imply that this fascination was not mutual, simply that Rose went above and beyond the call of duty as a dedicated cross-cultural diplomat. She was the only human in attendance at the hatching of the Virgin Mother Grub, eyes wide and luminous in the cave you had selected as the first breeding cavern; it had a rich, verdant growth of bioluminescent plants and pleasantly warm hot springs gurgling up out of the ground, an area that Aradia had assured you would remain geologically stable for the next three hundred years.

"Will she keep all of her legs as she matures, or will she shed them?" Rose had asked, staring at the Mother Grub's six thousand writhing appendages, undisturbed. It made you feel flushed, dizzy for Lalonde, because to you, the Mother Grub was beautiful, glistening and squirming and chirping fresh out of the orb. You had not expected that Rose would be able to stomach the sight; she was made of stern stuff.

Karkat had vomited and had been escorted away in hysterical tears by Mr Nitram, who had been in a similar state. Karkat's moirail had not attended the hatching.

You had pursed your lips. It disrupted your complexion to spend much time thinking of Gamzee, and all the ways you wished he were dead. The fresh universe of your Victory was marred by his presence.

"Legs. The majority of them will be shed, yes," you had answered, and proceeded to point out the sets of limbs that would remain - the opposable ones, triple-jointed, would grow longer and suitable for walking or burrowing.

The Virgin Mother Grub's eyes were useless vestigial bumps on top of her precious head; she would navigate by touch, smell, and taste. The slimy fronds flickering excitedly out the five orifices dotting her skull would develop into fully articulated tongue-like structures, mouths and nostrils capable of closing. The ears were almost impossible to see; they were buried in the soft, fat flesh of her neck.

Rose had been fascinated by your impromptu lesson, winning you and impressing you with her careful, intelligent questions and her fortitude when the Virgin Mother spat out her first meal all over your shoes. You supposed, blushing, that it was not so surprising after all. Miss Lalonde was well acquainted with horrorterrors; a few tentacles and a bit of noxious slime could not put her out.

"Shall I assume an invitation to the first slurry feeding?" she had said, arching a brow at you and _leering_, and you privately thought to yourself that only an idiot would fail to notice the resemblance to Dave Strider. "I doubt it'll turn my stomach."

Permission was granted; flirtatious gothic overtures were performed; you drank red wine that she had probably stolen from her alcoholic mom-daughter-sister and gossiped like thieves, slowly inching closer to one another.

Unfortunately, the first batch of (anonymously donated, concupiscent pail, red and teal) slurry you acquired to feed the Virgin only made her spit it all out, again all over your persons. This was troubling. Subsequent batches were also rejected, accompanied by unhappy chirruping, the Virgin Mother squirming uncomfortably and trying to hide in her own coiled tail, and you were at your wits' end. What was _wrong? _

She was at the right stage in her growth cycle to be hungry for slurry, her digestive sacs were plump with acids to break down and churn and recombine genetic material, she was large and healthy enough to hold a clutch of eggs in her gullet and regurgitate them into the perfectly-heated slime pits. You were so_ frustrated_ with her - with yourself.

"Perhaps there are more informative texts available," Rose suggested, frowning, sharing your worry. "Something more detailed. Something that would cover this situation."

You bit your lower lip. You didn't have time to sift through a mountain of material by yourself, the Virgin Mother Grub would grow ill if she didn't perform her function; the digestive sacs would eventually rupture, killing her from the inside, your _precious angel._

Rose laced her fingers in yours, giving you a soft, gentle look. "I'll help," she murmured, lips brushing the pointed tip of your ear.

Eventually, you discovered a potential solution.

It was as troubling as it was relieving.

-

"Essentially," you mused, because it was always helpful to organize one's thoughts by explaining them to another person, "there is an enzyme which she will not learn to manufacture on her own until she is exposed to it."

"I object to your factually and biologically incorrect usage of the word_ learn,"_ Rose said, cranky, sipping a cup of black coffee and running her hands through her pale hair, eyes shadowed with lack of sleep. "Let us be as precise as possible, Kanaya. The portions of her genome which are responsible for the production of that particular enzyme are silenced by an epigenetic sheath."

"A sheath which is deactivated by an introduction to the very enzyme whose production it prohibits," you parry, gracefully accepting her correction. She is quite right. You pause. "On Alternia, she would have fed on the effluvia of her foremothers. It would have been passed down by the older generation."

"Did you ever have a Troll Joseph Heller?" Rose asks, darkly, scowling at the stacks of books you have piled in the Useless corner.

"Yes," you say; and you frown, matching her grimace with one of your own. Under normal circumstances, you suppose you would be delighted to be up late discussing research with Rose. "I agree. This would seem to be quite a catch-22 situation."

"... Seem?" she prods, taking a sip of coffee and smiling a little at you, coaxing you to think aloud. You wince.

"We did not _evolve,_ Miss Lalonde, to use buckets," you hedge. "They are a relatively modern convenience, evolutionarily speaking."

You can see the fine hairs on her arms raise in a beautifully foreign mammalian reaction. Goosebumps, they are called. The wonders of erectile tissue.

"Go on," she says, slowly.

"Forgive me my reticence," you demur, fidgeting with your empty mug. "It is not a subject fit for civil conversation."

"Then let us be foul, Maryam," she counters, her tiny smile widening to a brief, saucy grin.

You struggle to word this. "We will be obliged to get down and dirty with our bad selves," you tell her, quoting Socrates. "That particular enzyme can be found in abundance under very specific, naturally occuring biological circumstances in the adult troll body, you see."

"Ah," Rose says, extrapolating quite a bit, eyebrows at their full height.

"Correct," you say. "We are going to have to do this the _old-fashioned way._"

"You... aren't built for live young," Rose remarks, obliquely. You can see the thoughts churning behind her eyes.

"Archaic writings advise the... _vessels,_" you say, "to pail their matesprits first and go to their kismesises second." You are fidgeting with the cuff of your off-the-shoulder asymmetrical silk blouse, fighting the olive green flush that is rising in your face. "It is not, correctly speaking, a gestation period - at least insofar as I understand the word. But it is an incredibly unpleasant, incredibly arduous process."

"So. You need either a caliginous or concupiscent pair to activate an old biological mechanism for you, and provide you with... what, exactly?" Rose presses.

"Pre-activated combined slurry," you say, as delicately as possible. "Thus, my dilemma."

Rose appears quite sober, steepling her fingers and frowning. You like watching her think, when she is like this; figuring out what, exactly, neither of you know.

"Forgive me," she says, abruptly, her brow furrowed with deep contemplation of things beyond your ethereal ken. "I don't understand the problem."

"The volunteer will have to be of a high blood caste, as a large amount of physical stamina is necessary to survive the pseudo-gestation," you begin, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper with one of the many, many scattered pens. "Their partner will need to be strong enough to survive them, during the ... process," you add, wrinkling your nose. "As an example, Vriska and Eridan might have been perfect, but their feelings for one another have disintegrated."

"Maryam, if it's for the sake of something as dire as the _survival of your species_," Rose says, very slowly, and you can tell that she is geniunely perplexed, "can these fruity assholes not_ take one for the proverbial team?"  
_  
That is the crux of the issue, of course.

They cannot.

You stare at her. Does she think that all you need to do to make grubs is _fill a bucket with someone?_

"Rose, don't be vile," you stammer. "What kind of species could possibly reproduce regardless of the earnestness of a pair's mutual feelings?"

"... Mine," Rose tells you, blinking.

You are at a loss.

"... If the feelings between a kismesis pair or a matesprit pair are not strong enough," you say, stiffly, "then the amount of hormones they release into their slurry during the act of pailing each other is not sufficient to trigger the proper chain reaction. They cannot dissolve the epigenetic barrier around their DNA, which would allow their genes to recombine."

This is very basic stuff, and it disturbs you to see Rose look _wistful._ Every attentive student of Alternian biology knew these things. There are two sheaths that must be dissolved before troll reproduction can be possible. The first barrier to recombination is typically removed simply by the interaction of the two compatible types of slurry. After enough time in a sufficiently heated relationship, the bodies of the participants adapt to the DNA of their partner, altering the composition of their slurry to allow it to combine with that of their beloved. (Or beloathed.)

The second barrier is the issue in question, here. Eventually, the body of a vessel troll can begin to secrete an enzyme that dissolves it; but it is a lengthy process of several weeks and repeated pailing.

"How very romantic your species is," Rose says softly, at odds with your current course of thought, shuffling the papers closest to her arms into a neat stack. She taps them slowly with her black-polished fingernails. "Human females, once fertilized, can be made to bear young regardless of their feelings on the matter."

... You feel a bit sick.

Her jaw is clenched and her eyes are narrowed and your bloodpusher lurches. You think that that's the saddest thing you've ever heard.

A species in which evolutionary success can be achieved by rape? The implications disgust you; the vessels that were the weakest to physical coercion would end up dominating the gene pool hand-in-hand with their stronger rapists, which could explain the creepy sexual dimorphism you observed on Earth. How long were humans around, again? How many tens of thousands of years did this go on?

Sweet merciful fuck, you think to yourself: this is some _truly whack shit. _

And then you feel incredibly guilty.

The cancer of Bilious Slick was not purely Karkat's fault, despite his self-loathing belief to the contrary. You had all had a hand in fucking the humans's universe up; yours was the poisoned session that gave birth to theirs. In a small but devastating way, you are all to blame for this.

"... I'm sorry," you say, faltering, as if one apology could ever be adequate for the condemnation of an entire species to lives of sickening brutality. Your pre-scratch ancestors had made the decision voluntarily for your own people; the humans had never had a choice.

"Oh. Don't be," Rose tells you, smiling a little. "SBURB gave us a variety of tools to combat this issue. We intend to make the most of them."

"... Your friendleader?"

"Yes. The palhoncho Egbert himself," Rose says, and you can see how fond she is of her friend in the way her eyes crinkle at the corners. The movement is so familiar, and the eyes are so alien, it is poetry made flesh. "We've salvaged the ectobiology equipment; he's trying to figure something out. Vantas is helping."

John, you think, looking at Rose's slight frame and her delicate hands, the tiny point of her chin, her rounded ears, the vulnerability of her frailty. You decide then and there that you can forgive him for impersonating Rose and throwing a wrench into the progress of your relationship with her; because John Egbert, it turns out, is _wonderful.  
_  
"Now, then," Rose says, nudging you back towards the original topic of conversation, taking your coffee mug and refilling it for you. "Regarding the pseudo-gestation and your reluctance to settle on a suitable pair of candidates."

"Ah, yes," you demur. "That."

If Karkat is everyone's moirail, and Vriska is everyone's kismesis, well, you would feel comfortable describing yourself as your group's go-to auspistice.

It will be easiest for you to cherry-pick a blackrom couple; they all come to you for advice. You already have one in mind.

You just don't think they'll agree to it.

* * *

Captor took your news with remarkable aplomb.

"Let me get thith thtraight, KN," Sollux says, staring at you, slowly adjusting his glasses. "The thurvival of our rathe dependth on me putting thith fucking hipthter through the motht groth thexual indignitieth I can think of."

He blinks, his shit-eating grin consuming his face. It is the sort of expression, Rose has informed you, that an earth human wriggler might possess on Earth Jegus's Official Fake Birthday.

He cackles. "_Jeguth._ I am THO ashen for you right now."

Ampora, on the other claw, did not share Sollux's enthusiasm for civil service.

"You're fuckin outta your pan if you think I'm gonna go for this, Kan," he refuses, visibly distressed.

"Really," Sollux says, snickering. "Show of handth, all in favor?"

Both of Eridan's hands shoot up above his head, little rings of blue and red psychic energy crackling around his wrists. Your lips are a thin line of disapproval, but you privately enjoy seeing Eridan toyed with.

Eridan deserves to be upset a little - to be gently mocked, by someone who knows all too well and too intimately when Eridan should and should not be taken seriously. It's good for both of them. Holding back their animosity for each other would only lead to a violent meltdown.

"Reel funny, fuckass," Eridan snaps, yanking his hands back down to clench at his sides. "Sol, I don't -"

"Come on," Sollux says, interrupting him, voice level and soft, his attention fixed to Eridan's face.

Your skin prickles. You know, on a sub-level of your current mental buzz, that this is more than just an inhive voice. The pitch and the tone are too intimate, too deliberate. You know that Sollux would not be making this face, making such tender noises, if there were anyone else in the room.

In a strange way, you are very gratified by their trust. You are the leading third wheel on the serendipitous tricyle of their hate. Could any other soul bear witness to this moment of intimacy between them? Your bloodpusher tells you no. It feels remarkably like being loved.

Eridan, for his part, accepts you as an auspistice without being conscious of it; he has been ashen with you for years, and it comes easily as respiration. He stops focusing on you, glares at Sollux defiantly, shifts his body minutely towards his kismesis.

"You got somefin to_ say, _Captor?" he asks, his voice matching Sollux's.

Sollux is impassive, unreadable; he inches his chair closer to Eridan's, lays a hand firmly over one of Eridan's shaking fists.

"You thorta owe KN, for one thing," Sollux says, blunt and sharp all at once. "You killed her and you blew up the firtht grub."

Eridan goes slightly pale, biting the insides of his cheeks. His eyes are wide, his expression bitter and angry. "Fuck, Sol, I can't -"

"Shut the fuck up. You know I'm not an altruitht. Don't think for a minute that I'm doing thith for any reathon other than genuinely wanting to make you fucking mitherable," Sollux croons, running his thumb over Eridan's knuckles.

Oh, that's real _romance,_ right there.

You could have sighed over the beauty of it, but you didn't want to disturb them. Eridan has a very ugly history of certain trolls staying in relationships with him out of a misplaced sense of altruism. You say nothing, but you observe how hearing Sollux reassure him causes his spine to go from rigid to relaxed; you observe the look in his eyes slide from distrusting to questioning.

"Yeah," Eridan murmurs, dropping his eyes to Sollux's bony knees, a tiny smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. "You sent me that embarrassin' hate mail tellin' me there was nothing I cod do to make myself any more atrocious."

"I uthed thmall wordth in an effort to penetrate the majethtic barrier reef of your thtupidity. Glad to thee it thtuck in your feeble little teacup of a brain, Ampora. You know you're the wortht," Sollux states, as certain of it as he is certain of anything. "The abtholute_ wortht._"

Eridan goes pale violet, pulse jumping. "No, you," he says, voice hushed, staring at Sollux's teeth, unconsciously wetting his lips.

Only then does Sollux smirk back, and you detect something lecherous in the way he raises his eyebrows. "Hey. Come on, bitch, wouldn't you hate it? You know you would," he coaxes. His voice is winding lower, softer, more sonorous. He is leaning in closer, almost close enough to brush his mouth against Eridan's fins.

"Don't tell me it doesthn't appeal to you, being my _bucket._ Having every mental and phythical limit broken. You alwayth want that, you provoke it, you want me to fuck you like crazy tho you can thnap. Yo u fucking love it when I push you over the edge."

The flush on the seadweller's angular face is a deep, beautiful violet.

"Mother_fucker,_" Eridan breathes, thick and low, a dark surrender in his eyes, "if I'm not takin' you down with me when I go."

They are about two seconds away from sloppily making out in front of you, so you cough, politely. They blink at each other and then at you, first in mild confusion and then with a considerable amount of awkward teenaged self-consciousness.

"I implore you to think about this carefully," you say. "I need to know as soon as possible whether or not you intend to help, so that I may arrange for someone else to -"

Four bespectacled eyes narrow at you.

"Oh, fuck no. Like hell you're gonna find someone else," Eridan spits, scowling. "Kan, you're _our_ auspistice, okay. You're a fuckin' rainbow drinker, you're basically the only asshole on this shitty planet who can take us both down and who isn't a fuckin gross clown cultist."

"Don't leave uth two our own devitheth, KN, we're total fuck-upth," Sollux chimes in, waggling his eyebrows at you.

You grin, showing a lot of teeth. "Thank you in advance for your cooperation, gentlemen," you say, bowing gracefully out of the room to give them some privacy.

You text Rose: _Success._

* * *

{{

You fuck Sollux slowly and deliberately in the room Kanaya set up for you, near the Mother Grub's caves.

It is strange, for you, to do this _on porpoise_; hate for Sollux comes so naturally to you that actually discussing things beforehand is jarring. Fussyfangs actually left you written instructions.

He sinks into you, slowly and carefully; you're straddling his lap as he leans back in his chair. His computer hums quietly in the background; that, and your own faltering breath, are all you hear. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel bad, either, it's just not very good.

He's running his tongue over the gill slits on your neck, his teeth a slick hard threat against your skin. And he is holding you carefully, keeping his claws sheathed as he grips your waist, which sends unease flickering through you. You can't relax.

If he's not rough with you, you don't know how to process it. It's the feeling you get when you're expecting one more stair.

Sollux knows you.

As if he's sensing your anxiety (and he could very well be) he slides his hands around the base of your horns and abruptly pulls your head down, hurting your neck and biting your lips hard enough to break the skin. The surge of pain blossoms like blood in water, a relief.

And you snarl, angry, wriggling on the bulges that impale you as he twists and slides deeper. Your body twitches around him, trying to accomodate him, trying to devour him whole, pulling _in_ when your fury would push him _out_. You feel drowsy, unfocused, sullen.

"Fuck," you mumble, sinking your teeth into his neck to announce your irritation, and then you start rocking your hips, chasing more of the burn. You're slick, now, and you miss the friction; but the slide feels good, the stretch completes you, you're not biting anymore, you're just panting against his skin. Pathetic.

"Yeah," he whispers, and juts his hips up, and your breath hitches in a dull whine. Oh. That.

Finally your own bulge unsheaths, and immediately he starts to stroke it, gently running his hand against your skin, and you fucking hate him, you hate this, every part of you is ugly with contempt for him.

"Harder, you fuckin' weakling, I can't feel anyfin," you hiss at him.

"Liar," he deadpans, but his psionics crackle over your hips and he slams you, making you gasp for air.

"Fuck -"

"Your own _traitor body,_" Sollux murmurs, in a detatched and clinical way, "will betray you." The way he sounds, so apathetic and uncaring and _intelligent_, makes you flush with a terrible heat. "I won't need to pin you down. You'll be so _full_ of come -" (he shoves in, hard, and you see stars) "- you won't be able to walk."

"- Sol," you choke out, clinging to his shoulders, hating the way you shudder, hating the way you clench, hating the way you shiver and melt.

"Everyone will know what you let me do," he continues, thrusting brutally hard and fast, now, blue and red crackling like electricity over the surface of your skin and you can't see straight, you can't do anything but squirm and try to thrust back, and he's still running his hands softly over your squirming junk. You hate that he can keep his shit together when you can't, it's fucking unfair.

"- cod," you hear yourself whine, and he laughs a little under his breath, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Everyone will..._ see,_" he bites out, running the back of his knuckles against your stomach as he jerks you off. "How much of a whore you are."

"You _asshoal,_" you whimper, eyes squeezed shut, and he's so fucking hot inside you, scraping against the parts of you that sing with pleasure when he moves, and you can't catch your breath, he keeps touching you -

"Mine, though," he whispers into your ear, and bites.

Instinct tells you to pull away when he starts to come. Instinct is probably telling him the same thing. This, Kanaya wrote down, must be done _deliberately,_ by someone who hates you and wants to make you suffer. You hadn't understood a lot of her nerdspeak, but that one sentence made you feel sort of better about the whole thing. Sol's feelings for you are real.

He jerks your hips down to the base of his bulges, filling you completely, and you wail, the muscles in your body spasming. At first it is completely unpleasant - you can feel his fluids gushing up and into you, and they don't stop, and he won't let you raise yourself up and off, he's got his hands on your shoulders, keeping you down.

Then, horrifyingly, it starts to feel slightly good.

Some hitherto unreached portion of your anatomy is opening, sucking it all in; as it expands, it sends little ripples of _fuck_ and _oh god_ and _Sol _through your blood. It presses slowly outwards against your other organs as his slurry fills it.

You're staring up at the ceiling, your whole body shaking; your nook is clamping down repeatedly, milking Sollux's body for his genetic material, and it's by far the most obscene thing you've ever done with him, but you are lost in a haze of sensation so intense it is crippling you. You can't quite feel the disgust you know you should.

Where are you? Where does your body end and the room begin?

"Fuck," Sollux mumbles into your skin, and you feel him stop pistoning, and for a lurching second, you feel like it's all going to gush out of you.

_Similar in its shape and function to the mitred valve of the human heart,_ Kanaya wrote, and you didn't fucking understand a word of that carp, but you feel something inside of you slam shut, holding everything in, and you choke on it.

" - fuck, moron, don't black out," Sollux is saying, and you realize you're sobbing air, completely limp in his arms, the power to move stolen from you. Your body is laid waste; he has slid out of you, bulges retracting beneath his sheath, and you're still dripping faint desperate lavendar, your bulge is still freaking the fuck out.

"- fuck, _kelp me_," you wail at him, twitching feebly, and he rolls his eyes and his hand wraps around you like a vise, and it feels raw and -

Your own orgasm is the second unpleasant surprise.

Instead of your slurry sac gushing out and emptying you of some of the pressure, it pours inward, and you are not ashamed to wail in shock.

_"FUCK -"  
_  
He's pulled his fingers back, he's staring at your stomach, he's laid a hand over it to feel it expand beneath his palm as the paroxysm rocks you. You are crying a little, completely bewildered, and your body is still shaking, you feel boneless. You blink down at yourself through a haze of pleasurable endorphins that are not enough to drown out the ungodly stretch.

Your gut is about two inches wider, distended, like you just ate three full meals in one sitting, and you can't help but stare at it.

"Oh my cod," you whisper with bated breath, horrified and aroused at the same time.

This was just the first round.

And you realize, in a cold sweat, that it's too late to back out now. The valves inside of you won't release until you're filled to capacity and the slurry is finished recombining, Kanaya was very clear on that.

"Uhh. Right. Good job," Sollux says, awkwardly patting you on the shoulder. He is catching his breath, adjusting his glasses, shifting his legs beneath you. "Well done. Round of applauthe."

You punch him so hard it knocks his glasses off.

}}

* * *

"Wait wait wait, oh my god," John asks, interrupting Rose's delicate explanation, his eyes wide, his jaw slack. "The shouty computer guy got Eridan _TROLL PREGNANT?"_

Rose develops a facial expression that you wish you could preserve for posterity. "Not quite," she tries to explain, but her friendleader is getting carried away, and does not listen.

(You rarely leave her side, these days; it was only natural for you to let her spill the proverbial beans to her close human friends, John and Dave, once they caught the tail end of your private conversation with her. You are comfortable with your Egbert-assigned role: _Rose's Troll Girlfriend._ The inaccuracy of the statement is only a little bit annoying.)

"Oh my god, trolls can do that?" John says, his voice hushed, holding his face in his hands. You think he is tearing up a little. He seems inordinately happy. "Holy shit! Are they going to get _troll married?_ Are they -"

(You feel yourself developing a facial expression that is startlingly similar to Rose's, as John continues to be a clueless fuckwit.)

" - freaking miracle of science! Oh! Oh man. Can Casey be the flower girl? She looks so cute in dresses," John continues, clearly excited about the notion, and before you can correct him on any of the many points he has gotten disastrously wrong, Dave snorts.

"Listen, Egbert," he drawls, "Our little nakodile bro is clearly going to be ringbearer and shit-thrower at this matrimonial throwdown, step off with your dumb salamander."

"Why not Casey? What is your_ issue _with my precious little girl, Dave?" John says, and dear god, he is actually pouting, planting his hands on his hips. You are sort of horrified by where this discussion is going.

"Bro code, man, bro code," Dave insists, shaking his head, leaning back in his chair and adopting a mock-serious frown. "Don't try to hammerstep your zillyhoo into this. Get your dick out of the wedding cake. I'm the clear shoo-in for best man, here. Me and Ampora been runnin' the shit out of Can Town for four glorious years, it'll be Judge Terezi's first official marriage, the Mayor will be first witness -"

Beside you, Rose sighs wearily, holding her face in her hands. "_Fucking LARPers,_" you hear her whisper.

You are rather inclined to agree.

Jade, at least, is moderately helpful. She returns to the beta-universe humans's joint housing construction about twenty minutes later, having spent her day sharpshooting with her grandfather-grandson-ectocousin.

"Oh, neat! Wow, so you're ready to start breeding grubs, then?" she asks, cheerfully, ignoring Dave and John (still, heaven help you all) arguing in the corner. "Haha! Guess you're beating us _homo sapiens sapiens _at the ol' reproduction race, whoops!"

"The Mother Grub is ready," Rose corrects her, earning your silent approval. "And yes."

Jade looks at you, curiously, as she kicks her shoes off and walks to the refrigerator. You stop staring at her split ends and attempt to look suave. "Uh, Eridan's the... vessel, right?"

"It seemed wise," you say, nodding.

"And they're in spades, and he's basically gonna be an angry balloon for - three? Four weeks?" she continues, frowning, pulling a chunk of raw meat out of the freezer, her dog ears flicking to catch a snippet of John and Dave's conversation. She is such a fascinating creature. You wish she took better care of her hair.

"About that long, yes," you say. It will depend on factors beyond anyone's capacity to estimate, depend on action taking place on an intra- and inter-cellular level.

Jade pauses, biting the inside of her cheek, wincing at little. "You, um. You might want to take away his strife specibus," she points out, and your blood runs cold.

"Oh shit," you say, and promptly cover your mouth with your hands. You detect Rose smirking in your peripheral vision.

Yes. You might want to do that.

* * *

{{

A day or two after taking your weapons away from you, she comes to visit you both, and you're so bone-tired from fucking that all you can do is blink at her. Sollux is in a similar state, but he's actually unconscious.

"... Allow me to change the sheets, please," she says, primly, and you groan into the pillow.

Sollux is wrapped all over you in a weird tangle, chewing on you while he sleeps; he starts at the sound of her voice, and sniffs the air, arms and legs tensing around you, before he identifies her and relaxes.

"Jeguth. KN. It'th you."

She pauses her bustling, and raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you reacting that strongly to pheromones?"

"Yeah," Sollux says, after a pause. You can feel him frowning against your back, breathing on you. "I mean, Eridan thmellth really, really good in a way that kinda maketh me angry? And you thmell ... like I don't wanna kill you, but I really _don't_ wanna fuck you. It'th weird. Take noteth."

"Trust me, Mister Captor, your experimental data will be duly recorded for posterity," she answers primly, and then she's holding - oh, you are so fucking ashen for this bitch, she's dangling raw fish in front of your face, and you _lunge_ forward out of Sollux's grip to snatch it.

Fuck, you are _so _hungry.

"You're dithguthting," Sollux says fondly somewhere behind you, and you're swallowing the salmon in gulped chunks, so you don't hit him.

"You brought me _honey Faygo_?" Sollux says a moment later, audibly choked up about it.

"And a vial of mind honey from your hive to replenish your psionic abilities, and I was not entirely certain what else, but I will fetch it promptly per your instructions. Eridan," she says, and there's a hand on your shoulder that isn't Sollux's, and you flinch a little before you remember it's her. "There's more fish in the box."

"Thanks," you mumble around a chunk of meat, turning to look at her.

She's wearing clothes.

It strikes you as odd, until you remember that no, actually, technically you and Sollux are naked, it's the other way around. You wonder why you don't feel weird about it; you try to imagine anyone else entering this cave, and your skin prickles with normal embarrassment, but for some reason Kanaya is fine.

"Clubs for you," you add.

"Likewise," she says, softly, and visually inspects your swollen stomach. You look sort of like you've got a human soccer ball under your skin; it lies lower than your stomach, where another, fish-related bump is starting to form. You fail to give a fuck about it, and take another salmon out of the box she put on the floor next to your side of the bed, biting its head off.

"Oh my god, thtop eating like that, I will puke on your fathe," Sollux hisses at you, throwing the bottlecap from his Faygo at your hands as they rip the fish open. You look at him and grin, spitefully, with your mouth full of fish, and he retches a little.

It's nice, having her around during the breathers. You know, wearily, that in half an hour or so you'll start to feel the itch between your legs again, but for now, you're good.

You notice her frowning at you a little, but you're too tired to wonder why.

}}

* * *

"Miss Leijon," you say, cordially, your tube of lipstick in hand. Nepeta is busily skinning what appears to be a dead hopbeast in the middle of a forest clearing, not far from her abode. When you took the transportalizer over, Mr. Zahak, who appeared to be tidying up the place, informed you as to her general whereabouts. He politely refrained from shaking your hand, to avoid getting his sweat on your opera gloves.

The forest is dark, and foreboding. You savor the ambiance.

When she notices you she is abruptly delighted.

"Kan-kan!" Nepeta squeals, standing up with her hands and knees covered in little bits of fur and blood, and you attempt not to wince. She smells awful.

"Ehehehe! I didn't hear your approach! You're getting pretty stealthy now that you're undead. Hey, you _never _come out to my den, this is purr-ecious!"

She makes as though to hug you. You dodge gracefully.

"Forgive my intrusion upon your privacy, but I have a request to make," you say, while she pouts and considers the filthy state of her paws.

"Yeah? Anything I can help out with?" she asks, cheering up a little, licking some of the vile dredge from her hands. She is slight, bouncing up and down on her heels, giving you a beguiling tilt of her feline head. "I have a whooole big heap of pelts I've totally been meaning to drop off at your hive - if you need fur I've already got purr-lenty stocked up!"

That is very sweet of her. You are quite touched by the gesture, and mentally remind yourself to not be a huge nookchafe to your friends, because they actually like you. "Oh. Many thanks. I'm afraid that isn't it, though."

"What's the haps, then?" she chirps, attempting to be kawaii. You hold back on your pained grimace.

"I am going to need a large quantity of fresh animal blood very soon," you tell her. She and Equius live as far away from Gamzee and Vriska as possible; they are somewhat out of the loop, and you struggle to recollect how much they have missed.

Her eyes widen, pupils narrowing into probing slits.

"Is it a rainbow drinker purr-oblem?" she asks, fretting. "Are you feeling meowsy, Kan-nyaa?"

You settle on being as forward as possible. "It's not me. Sollux and Eridan have had to pail one another in the _archaic _sense," you divulge. "The Virgin Mother Grub couldn't digest the slurry straight out of the buckets; so."

"They - _Whoa_," Nepeta says, blushing completely green to the tips of her ears. "Oh my gosh. _Whooaaa."_

"Precisely," you say. "They'll be pailing regularly for the next two weeks or so, give or take a few days, and the literature on the subject has given me to understand that they will not be able to digest solid food quickly enough to replenish themselves. Hence, my dilemma. I am no huntress of beasts."

"Who's... um... who's the _bucket, _Kan-chan?" Nepeta asks you in hushed tones, taking a pawtop computer out of the breastpocket of her (shabby, oversized, patched) hunting coat and swiftly opening what appears to be a mobile shipping wall. You are faintly revolted.

"Erm. Mister Ampora," you answer, disturbed. Her madness has increased in its depravity. "Leijon, I didn't know you kept track of the hypothetical bucket situations for your troll ships."

"Huh?" Nepeta looks up at you after tapping in Eridan's name with her tiny fingers, getting blood on the screen. "Oh, no, I don't, but that's a great idea! I was just wondering 'cause..." She wrinkles her nose. "He's gonna need a slow drip once he's at capacity, I think," she pronounces, judiciously, and gives you a questioning look. "Right?"

"... what?" you ask, out of your depths. The details of troll bucketship were not your native area of scholarship, but you and Rose have been up at all hours researching it. You worry that you have missed something vital.

Nepeta frows a little, biting her lower lip. "Gosh. You know. Once his tummy is full, it's gonna squish all his other organs super small, right? He'll keep a little bit of space fur his lungs, but he won't have any room fur food in there! He'll have to drink, um, maybe half-and-half blood and water? And sip it slowly, or he'll just spit it back up."

You stare at her. She looks at you expectantly, waiting for you to agree with her, but you are simply flabberghasted.

That is astonishingly practical.

"How the_ hell _did you know that?" you ask her, finally, the night chill shivering over your skin.

Nepeta giggles. "Oh, I read like, a _ton_ of bucket fanfiction," she tells you, beaming.

You let out a prolonged sigh, weary of this wretched world. Of course she did. _Fucking shippers._

"Anyway," she continues. "Yeah, that sounds like a real pickle! Let me just ask my meowrail if he's cool with it."

At first Zahak has some understandable objections to the wholesale slaughter of a metric fuck-tonne of adorable, innocent animals.

"Miss Maryam, for what purpose could you possibly require such vast quantities of blood?" he asks, genuinely frightened. Your skin is glowing faintly, even in his well-lit workroom. He probably suspects you are trying to raise an army of rainbow drinkers, or something equally horrific. You struggle to respond; your feelings are hurt.

Nepeta laughs, and slaps him on the side.

"Oh man! Okay, so, you know how Sollux and Eridan are like, totally spades?"

"I was aware that the seadweller had entered into a caliginous relationship with the sulphur-blood," Equius answers, his voice stiff, sweating profusely.

Nepeta makes a "X3" face. "Sollux _made Eridan his bucket_," she squeals, clapping her hands together.

Equius appears to suffer a minor heart attack. The robotic arm he is working on is crumpled into a ball of iron wreckage.

If you thought he was sweating badly before, it was because you had never seen him like this.

"_Towel,_" he whimpers, his entire body soaked, and Nepeta cheerfully flits away, coming back with a stack of them.

"So, if you're _c00l _with it, I'm gonna be doing a lot of big game hunting every day, and dropping the kills off at Kanaya's place," Nepeta explains, while Equius continues to mop his brow and stare, shell-shocked, at the ground. "Well, more like paralyze them and paw 'em off on her with a pulse! You don't wanna feed someone blood from a dead body, right?"

"Right," you interject, firmly. As a blood-drinker, the thought repulses you.

"So, is it okay? You'll be okay here alone?" Nepeta presses, practicaly climbing into his lap to peer into his visage, a legitimately adorable look of concern pinching her little face.

"If it will be of help to our friends," Equius says, quietly, smiling shyly at the floor, "I suppose I cannot object."

You suppose that they are not entirely disgusting.

_"Sugoi," _Nepeta breathes, her eyes sparkling.

You take that last thought back.

* * *

{{

It's better once Kan starts to bring you the huge gallon jugs of steaming blood - Sollux is squeamish about it at first, but he gets over that pretty quickly when he sees its effect on you.

When you can think about it - when Sollux collapses, and starts stroking you with his psionics to get you off, too tired and sated to do anything else, and you shudder and whimper a little in the back of your throat - when the roaring urge to fuck Sollux is lost in the hazy protection of orgasm, you're kind of grossed out by yourself.

Your stomach expands a little every day, and Kanaya has taken to rubbing some sort of beeswax home beauty bullshit on it to prevent stretch marks and tearing. Your abs, you regret, have vanished.

The only things that prevent Sollux from constantly fucking you are: one, his physical exhaustion; and two, the fact that he has enough presence of mind and self-control to prevent you from rupturing your internal organs. Even when you really, _really_ want him to.

"Fuck," he mumbles against your skin, slipping his hand between your legs and into you, and you gasp, cursing. "Fuck, I want to, I want to, believe me, I want to -"

"Then_ do it, _fuck you, come on," you babble, your body on fire; his hand is a relief, but it's not enough. "Why won't you just - come on, I need it, fuck, I hate you, I_ hate you_, why aren't you fucking me -"

"Can't, can't, can't," he whispers apologies down the back of your neck. Your head is resting on his other arm; you bite him, petulant, but you're too tired to puncture the skin, too tired to try to pin him down and take what you want by force. He laughs a little at you. "You can't even draw blood, moron. Try to thleep."

"But I want you," you whine, teething angrily at his flesh.

"I know," he murmurs into your hair, stroking the taut curve of your stomach, and gently continues to finger you until your exhaustion catches up to you and you pass out.

Your dreams are fevers.

You're even more aroused when you wake up, grabbing the warm blood Kanaya left by the bedside while you slept and chugging it all down before you even glance at your kismesis. When you do, lust hits you like a fucking train. Sollux is finishing off the last of his liquid meal, preferring to lace his blood with honey; he's licking red blood off his lips, blood that isn't _yours_, and it makes you inexplicably angry.

He's staring at your mouth and the animal blood on your face like he wants to rip your body apart; you blush, dizzy with want.

"On your handth and kneeth," he orders you, eyes literally glowing with psychic overflow.

"Make me," you snarl at him, "you lazy piece a shit -"

And he does. That's the great part.

}}

* * *

At one point, you are having trouble carrying all the supplies they require, and so Rose charitably volunteers to help you. "I would never miss the opportunity to observe such a rare biological event, Miss Maryam," she tells you.

You are _so_ flushed for her.

She holds the crate of fish while you carry the blood - it smells faintly appetizing to you, like the aroma of baked goods, but you're quite sated already.

You don't knock on the door, simply opening it and walking in, Rose trailing a minute or so after; she likes to dawdle with the Mother Grub, whom she has nicknamed Abigail.

Sollux and Eridan are dozing, post-coital; Sollux blinks at you, and sits up, yawning.

"Hey, KN, what are you -"

Visibly, a scent hits him. His entire body goes rigid; Eridan murmurs in sleepy confusion, and Sollux is - hovering over him, like a living shield.

"_No," _he hisses, frantic, panicked, and then, a guttural growl:_ "MINE."_

A terrible halo of red and blue energy begins to crackle around his head like a storm, deafeningly loud - he has one hand pressing down on Eridan's neck, to prevent him from sitting up, and the other is preparing a spinning orb of terrifying, blinding lightening. He's blinking, jaw clenched, while his psionics scream.

"-_ FUCK._ Get her _out,"_ Sollux croaks, "I can't - I'll -"

Rose finally reaches the doorway; she blinks at the panorama before her, and - _holy fuck, you love this girl _- she requires no explanation. She immediately throws down her supplies and takes off at a dead run for the cave exits without a single word, glancing over her shoulder at you as she flees.

Her expression says: _oh, how exciting, the little quirks of your species' mating rituals._

You stare after her adoringly.

Behind you, Captor is slowly collecting himself. Panting harshly, he sits down again, groaning, clutching his head in his hands. "Thorry, I didn't - damn. Wathn't exthpecting that."

"I was not expecting such a visceral reaction, either," you reassure him.

"The fuck is wrong with you _now,"_ Eridan mumbles at him, and he flushes.

"Shut up, you ungrateful fuck," he says, pinching Eridan's face. "I jutht went totally macho for you. I nearly killed Rothe."

"Oh, reely?" Eridan says, blinking and yawning a little. "Hot."

"Yeah. It wath terrifying," he says, and ducks down to press a kiss to Eridan's jaw.

You're sensing a shift in the way he behaves towards Eridan; the fuller Eridan's belly grows, the less violent Sollux is. You wonder, with a small amount of trepidation, what will happen when the pseudo-gestation ends; but you table the thought for later.

"How did Rose smell?" you ask him, curious.

"She wathn't you," Sollux answers, immediately, grimacing. "Wrong, I gueth? A threat. Pretty sure anyone who ithnt you would thmell like a threat, though. You thmell _right_." He pauses, frowning at his own hands. "Fuck, that thoundth thtupid."

"You always sound stupid, you lisping beefucker," Eridan murmurs, still clutching the pillow. He doesn't see Sollux grin at him, but you think, on some level, he knows.

You steel yourself. You may end up having to auspistice at a quadrant vacillation.

"I think... if you loan Rothe thome of your clotheth, it should be fine," Sollux calls after you, as you're leaving. "I mean. If she wantth to come back."

You consider it.

"Hells to the yes, I want to try that again," Rose tells you, a glint of the manic in her eyes as she smiles. You are taking a brief moratorium on your endless research over musty tomes and having tea in the stuffed armchairs by her actually-functional fireplace. She has done witchery to her windows so that it always appears to be raining; the effect is quite soothing.

You purse your lips at her.

"Are you being fresh with me, miss Lalonde?" you query.

"Not a bit," she assures you.

"Well, then," you sigh. "Anything for science."

Rose giggles a little into her tea. She is a dark magician of the most wicked magics and fell sorceries; she tends to find science amusing.

* * *

{{

Your kismesis is silently attempting not to flip his shit as he sits as far away from you as he can stand, which is seriously not very far, it's the end of the bed and he's got his hand on your ankle.

The Rose human, who smells sort of gross but also like she belongs to Kanaya, which makes her okay, is staring at your stomach.

"No bellybutton," she murmurs, softly, and Kanaya smiles at her. "Of course, you wouldn't have one."

"No shit," you agree, and Sollux smiles briefly at you. His expression sours dramatically when Rose stretches out her hand.

"May I?"

"Uh... _shore, _I guess," you say. You're propped up against the headboard, a sheet around your waist for modesty's sake. Sollux put on some gross, ratty old boxers; he's not the one with a hideously distended stomach. He's clenching his teeth, watching Rose touch you, and his hand spasms painfully around your ankle. Kanaya gives him a warning glare for that one.

Rose's touch is clinical, cool and searching.

There's no reason, you think, for anyone to want to touch your stomach, unless they're Sol (who's perpetually fucking pleased with himself, the smug bastard) or Kan, with her oddly nice lotion - or, someone trying to hit you so hard the sac ruptures and kills you from shock. You guess you can understand why Sollux is reacting so badly to a stranger touching you.

She frowns.

"It's -"

The frown clears up, and she laughs, softly, pulling her hand back. Her wands are tucked into her sash; you gaze at them morosely. It's been fuckin' forever since you had weapons on you. "Well, that was silly of me," she murmurs. "I found myself searching for movement."

"How illogical," Kanaya says, her eyes gleaming with interest. "Would you say it was instinctive?"

Rose pauses, taps her chin with her fingertip. You wonder how badly Kan and Sol would kick your ass if you tried to nick her wands off her. It's not like you have anywhere to hide them, seriously. You just want to do_ something._

"Perhaps," she muses. "It may be an example of instinctive herd behavior. From time to time a fetus dies in the womb - it's important to detect this early, or it will rot, and it may either poison the mother's bloodstream or lead to a violent miscarriage."

"How revolting you mammals are," Kanaya says, not looking particularly revolted at all.

Rose smiles innocently at her. "Your disgust is especially apparent when you have your tongue down my throat," she says. "The xenophobia is quite alluring."

Sollux coughs.

You decide that Kanaya's matesprit is all right.

}}

* * *

Two weeks later you are woken in the middle of the night by Abigail chittering nervously and excitedly at you; you have been falling asleep next to her, as she seems to sleep easier that way.

Blearily, you stand up, and you see that she is trying to climb out of her pool. The probocsii which she uses to smell are waving excitedly.

You frown, and delicately sniff the air.

... Oh. Something smells incredibly appetizing. Abigail clearly wants to get to it before anyone else does.

"Very well, then, darling," you tell the Virgin Mother Grub, and you make an angled plane with your hands for her to clamber up.

She is about six meters long, and her head is roughly a foot in diameter, widening to about a foot and a half further along her body, a glossy, milky white. She shed her first set of vestigial legs two days ago; the remaining ones have already lengthened, the soles of her feet hardening into claws.

You are so _proud_ of her.

With an adorable, fierce determination, she slithers towards the chamber where Eridan and Sollux are living. You are fully awake now, and you wonder, frowning, what has happened. You suspect that the pseudo-gestation has reached its critical point. They have been pailing less and less frequently in the past five days. You aren't certain, however, until you open the door a crack and peek in.

Eridan is panting, harshly, gritting his teeth, looking incredibly confused, propped up against the headboard. "This shouldn't be happening? I mean, I don't fucking know what this carp is, Sol," he says, half objecting and half questioning, while Sollux offers him a rag.

His stomach has ballooned outwards into a near-perfect half sphere, forcing his ribcage wider, making it impossible to stand or visit the ablution trap or even change his physical position without Sollux's help. (Which Sollux has been enjoying, you're pretty sure; it's humiliating for Eridan, of course, which gives him ample opportunity for petty schadenfreude, but Sollux has begun to enjoy being helpful. You take this as a sign of the impending quadrant vacillation. You try to be a discreet, and well-prepared, auspistice.)

There's a clear, viscous substance leaking out of his nook, coating his thighs and his lower stomach.

Abigail, chirruping loudly in excitement, nudges you out of the way and crawls into the room.

Everyone is holding their breath as she angles her head towards Eridan's junk.

"Holy _fucking shit,_" Eridan whimpers, going incredibly pale, eyes wide.

"Sollux," you say, pleasantly, striding over to Eridan's other side and grabbing his free hand. Captor gets the hint, and mimics you. The seadweller cannot run, or reach around his stomach to push the Mother Grub's head away from him; all he can do is try to hold his thighs together and hyperventilate in terror.

He is gripping your hand so tightly you are beginning to lose feeling in your fingers, but you don't mind. You expect he needs to have his hand held.

Abigail slowly, curiously, crawls up onto the bed, half of her body still dangling off the end, and Eridan's legs are trembling and he is panting harshly and he has started to cry, soft purple tears down his ash-grey face, in absolute terror. "Nope," he croaks, when you tug at his knee, trying to get his legs open.

"Shhh," Sollux says, looking just as disturbed, but handling it better. "Keep it together, Ampora."

_"Sollux,_" you say again, sugaring your irritation with him, and nod towards Eridan's other leg. He winces, but he obeys you. Together you hold Ampora open.

Still chittering in excitement, Abigail extends a few sensory tentacles forwards, dripping with saliva.

_"- no no no no no,"_ Eridan is sobbing, and you can feel his pulse hammering, and you grit your teeth and hold him down as he tries to thrash. Abigail can sense his distress; attempting to soothe him, she licks his stomach, and he whimpers, fresh tears falling off his face as he shakes. She doesn't try further to calm him; she has tasted the substance oozing out of him, and her four thousand limbs move with a terribly intent purpose.

Every mouth she has opens, her many tongues lapping and wriggling against his flesh, and - you feel faint to see it - a single, strong proboscis unfurls from deep inside her throat.

When she probes his nook with it, along with a few questing tongues, Eridan's sobbing grows worrisome. You're not sure what to do; this is a totally necessary step in the process, but surely -

"_- fuck, no, no no no no no no - help - fuck, I'm sorry, whatever I did, I'm sorry,_" Eridan is crying, his voice coming out of him in shuddering, painful gasps, tears and snot running down his face. _"Don't make me - please, fuck -"_

"It's not like she has _teeth_, Eridan," you scold him, but he is lost to words. He's so _scared_.

And then - you can tell by the way Abigail starts to wriggle, excitedly, and the way Eridan's whole body clenches, and he lets out the most pitiful scream you have ever heard - she reaches the valve within him, and wedges it open, sucking the slurry out a mouthful at a time. You can watch her swallow some of it, the rings of peristalsis carrying it down her proboscis to her taste organs; you can almost see her deliberate over it and decide that yes, this tastes good, she will have more. The gullet under her chin begins to swell as she sucks.

What can you _do_, though, Sollux looks so bewildered, and Eridan's pulse is so harsh and erratic under your grip that you're afraid he will give himself permanent damage in his terror.

... You have an idea.

"Oh, you poor thing," you croon at him, squeezing his hand back, keeping an eye on Sollux. "Does it hurt very much?"  
_  
"Yes,"_ he cries, and you see it. You're watching Sollux's face as he watches the troll he hates - swollen like an inflamed wound, suffering incredibly, full of his slurry - weeping piteously in fear as what appears to be a horrorterror appears to fuck him cruelly with a deeply scary tentacle mouth-dick.

You are breathlessly aware of the moment the quadrant flips, a perfect moment in time. Their eyes meet.

"Oh, _fuck,_ babe," Sollux murmurs, his face crumbling into an expression of sheer pity, and he loops an arm behind Eridan's neck, wrapping his hand over his eyes so he can't stare at what's happening between his legs. "Shhh. I got you."  
_  
"Sol,"_ Eridan chokes, crying, and Sollux presses kisses to the gill slits in his neck, murmurs soothing things into his skin, holds him, and it's probably one of the loveliest things you've ever seen. Your _boys._

Abigail, for her part, is oblivious to the drama she is causing, but you aren't exasperated with her. She is so pleased with herself; and she was so hungry, she's perhaps suctioning a little faster than she should, and definitely going a little overboard with the number of tongues she shoves inside him, but oh, you can't be angry.

After the flip, things go more or less smoothly.

Eridan's body shudders, violently, as his stomach begins to contract; Sollux continues to whisper softly into his ear, doesn't lift his hand away from Eridan's eyes, tries not to watch.

"Shh, shh,_ I have you_, you're thafe," you hear Sollux mumble, and pretend not to notice Eridan's blush.

Once she's done, her gullet fat with genetic fluids, Abigail visibly wants to try to cuddle them. You manage to persuade her to go back to her slime pit and brood there, instead.

Weary and sleep-deprived, you are comfortable leaving Eridan in Sollux's hands. And it is only polite. They've got some seriously heavy shit to sort out, to quote Shakespeare.

Before you nod off again, watching Abigail curl up, humming softly, you text Rose. _Congratulations. You Have Entirely Avoided The Grossly Sexual Portion Of The Troll Mating Process._

A moment later she texts you back: _To quote the late Sir Ian McKellan, go the fuck to sleep.  
_  
_3._

* * *

{{

Something changed, and upon waking, you're not sure what.

The horrible, all-consuming pressure is gone, although your stomach is still soft and swollen. At first you think that's the only change. Your brain, too, feels like a weight has fallen away from it.

"Hey," Sollux says, stretching his body against yours, gently wrapping an arm around you and tugging you close. "You awake?"

"You smell different," you tell him, breathing in.

"No, you," he breathes against the back of your neck, pressing kisses on your skin, and you shiver, biting your lower lip as you shift your legs. You can shift your legs, you can move - well, okay, no you can't. You're too sore to do much more than lay there, letting Sollux mouth at your over-tender skin.

You snort. "Hey. If you think I'm up for -"

"Nah," he murmurs, and continues to kiss his way down your shoulder, "I know."

You aren't sure what to make of that, that this isn't a prelude to fucking your brains out. A few weeks ago you would have been offended or made vicious comments about lowblood impotence, but you've spent every waking and sleeping moment with him for that whole time, and you're sort of burned out on hating him.

"... Are you _red _for me?" you ask, incredulous, because that's the only thing you can think of, and Sollux laughs.

"Ith that a problem?"

"... Uh. No," you decide. A tremor runs through you; you're vaguely worried. "You won't always be like this, will you?"

"Nope," he sighs. "Promithe. I don't think thith ith permanent."

"All right, then." He still hates you, thank everything. You're not sure you'd know which way was up, the color of the sky, the taste of water, if you couldn't be sure of Sollux hating you. But this is nice, and you want to enjoy it.

"Hey," he murmurs against your skin, running his fingertips all over you. "You know how you committed an act of genothide? Like, two univertheth ago? Think hard."

"Fuck off, you dick," you murmur back, and he smiles at you.

"I think thith thort of maketh up for it. At leatht. In my book."

"...Wow, that's great," you snort, rolling your eyes up at your favorite pan-damaged idiot. "So it turns out all I gotta do to clean my slate with everyone is spend a fuckin' sweep or two pailin' the shit outta them and havin' really traumatizin' sex with a tentacle monster, got it, I'll get right on -"

He kisses you.

You're basically pretty okay with that.

}}


End file.
